Look in the mirror. The face that pins you with its double gaze reveals a chastening secret.
-- Diane Ackerman

"Fortify yourself with a flock of friends! You can select them at random, write to one, dine with one, visit one, or take your problems to one. There is always at least one who will understand, inspire, and give you the lift you may need at the time."
--George Matthew Adams

"Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you."
--Joey Adams

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
-- Joseph Addison, The Spectator, September 26, 1712

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
-- Joseph Addison, 'Cato'

"If at first you don't succeed, you're running above average."
--M. H. Alderson

Eighty percent of success is showing up.
-- Woody Allen

When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us.
-- Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost, 1934

"The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings."
--Henri Frederic Amiel

"The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."
--Henri Fredric Amiel

"Of all afflictions, the worst is self-contempt."
--Berthold Auerbach

"Chance favors those in motion."
--James H. Austin

To find fulfillment...don't exist with life - embrace it.
-- Jim Beggs

"I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic."
-- Lisa Alther, Kinflicks, 1975

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.
-- Henri F. Amiel

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
-- Henri F. Amiel

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
-- Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
-- Matthew Arnold, 'God and the Bible,' 1875

"If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right."
--Mary Kay Ash

Contentment is not satisfaction. It is the grateful, faithful, fruitful use of what we have, little or much. It is to take the cup of Providence, and call upon the name of the Lord. What the cup contains is its contents. To get all that is in the cup is the act and art of contentment. Not to drink because one has but half a cup, or because one does not like its flavor, or because somebody else has silver to one's own glass, is to lose the contents; and that is the penalty, if not the meaning, of discontent. No one is discontented who employs and enjoys to the utmost what he has. It is high philosophy to say, we can have just what we like if we like what we have; but this much at least can be done, and this is contentment: to have the most and best in life by making the most and best of what we have.
... Maltbie D. Babcock (1858-1901)

"You're going to have to learn to fake cheerfulness. Believe it or not eventually that effort will pay off: you'll actually start feeling happier."
--Jean Bach

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work."
--Richard Bach

"There are two kinds of talent, man-made talent and God-given talent. With man-made talent you have to work very hard. With God-given talent, you just touch it up once in a while."
--Pearl Bailey

"Long tresses down to the floor can be beautiful, if you have that, but learn to love what you have."
--Anita Baker

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix."
--Christina Baldwin

"Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it."
-- Tallulah Bankhead

To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.
-- Margaret Fairless Barber

"The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it."
--Rona Barrett

"God gave us memory that we might have roses in December."
--James M. Barrie

"You grow up the day you have your first real laugh – at yourself."
--Ethel Barrymore

"Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away hunger."
--St. Basil

"Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts."
--Arnold Bennett

"Readjusting is a painful process, but most of us need it at one time or another."
-- Arthur C. Benson

"Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene."
--Arthur Christopher Benson

The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.
-- Josh Billings

"Silence is one of the hardest things to refute."
--Josh Billings

"In not making the decision, you've made one. Not doing something is the same as doing it."
--Ivan Bloch

Victory belongs to the most persevering.
-- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)

"One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority."
--Napoleon Bonaparte

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people."
-Victor Borge, on Laughter

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
-- Anne Bradstreet, 'Meditations Divine and Moral,' 1655

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
-- Bertolt Brecht

"Don't take anyone else's definition of success as your own."
--Jacqueline Brisken

"Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words."
--Dr. Joyce Brothers

For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.
-- Rita Mae Brown

"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory."
--Rita Mae Brown

"Once the 'what' is decided, the 'how' always follows. We must not make the 'how' an excuse for not facing and accepting the 'what.'"
--Pearl Buck

"What we think, we become."
--Buddha

"You cannot plan the future by the past."
--Edmund Burke

"Win hearts, and you have all men's hands and purses."
-- William Cecil Burleigh

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
-- John Burroughs

"From self alone expect applause."
--Marion L. Burton

"With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable."
--Sir Thomas Foxwell Buxton

"We are what we believe we are."
--Benjamin N. Cardozo

"The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong."
--Thomas Carlyle

"Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most often makes for success."
--Dale Carnegie

"You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don't win, at least you can be satisfied that you tried. If you don't accept failure as a possibility, you don't set high goals, you don't branch out, you don't try – you don't take the risk."
--Rosalynn Carter

"The key to change . . . is to let go of fear."
--Rosanne Cash

Any single verse of the Bible, taken in isolation, may actually be dangerous to your spiritual health. Every part of it must be read in relation to the whole message.
... Louis Cassels (1922-1974)

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.
-- Willa Cather (1873 - 1947), The Song of the Lark, 1915

"The most wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed."
-- Sebastien R. N. Chamfort

"Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge, and dares forgive an injury."
--E. H. Chapin

Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused.
-- King Charles I, of England

"To remain young one must change."
--Alexander Chase

"Enthusiasm is nothing more or less than faith in action."
--Henry Chester

"Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so."
-- Lord Chesterfield

"Life is not always what one wants it to be, but to make the best of it, as it is, is the only way of being happy."
--Jennie Jerome Churchill

"The price of greatness is responsibility."
-- Sir Winston Churchill

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
-- Sir Winston Churchill

Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.
-- Cicero

The best way to realize the pleasure of feeling rich is to live in a smaller house than your means would entitle you to have.
-- Edward Clarke

"To behave with dignity is nothing less than to allow others freely to be themselves."
--Sol Chaneles

"Circumstances break men's bones; it has never been shown that they break men's optimism."
--G. K. Chesterton

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~ Sir Winston Churchill

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it.
-- Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1825

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.
-- Colette

We only do well the things we like doing.
-- Colette, Prisons and Paradise, 1932

"Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you someone who has never achieved much."
--Joan Collins

Praise the bridge that carried you over.
-- George Colman

"Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones."
--Charles Caleb Colton

When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.
-- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.
-- Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933), speech, June 11, 1928

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
--Bill Cosby

"No man knows his true character until he has run out of gas, purchased something on the installment plan and raised an adolescent."
--Mercelene Cox

I think wholeness comes from living you life consciously during the day and then exploring your inner life or unconscious at night.
-- Margery Cuyler

"Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth."
-- Charles A. Dana

Chase after truth like hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat-tails.
-- Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.
-- Clarence Darrow

"Success generally depends upon knowing how long it takes to succeed."
--Charles de Montesquieu

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
--Charles Dickens

Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
-- Emily Dickinson

"Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things."
--Denis Diderot

Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting thing in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
-- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784), Supplement to Bougainville's 'Voyage,' 1796

"Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries."
--Everett McKinley Dirksen

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island . . . and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."
--Walt Disney

"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."
-- Benjamin Disraeli, speech, January 24, 1860

"The secret of success is constancy of purpose."
--Benjamin Disraeli

"Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can't live without."
--Dr. James C. Dobson

"If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself."
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Production is not the application of tools to materials, but logic to work."
--Peter Drucker

"The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here."
--Finley Peter Dunne (as "Mr. Dooley," a character in Dunne's newspaper column)

"A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink and be merry."
--Ecclesiastes, 8:15

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
-- Albert Einstein

"Truth is what stands the test of experience."
--Albert Einstein

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876

"Patience and fortitude conquer all things."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it."
-- Mary Engelbreit

The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most cheerfully.
-- Epicurus, 300 B.C.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.
-- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach, Aphorisms, 1905

The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.
-- Euripides

"Judge a tree from its fruit; not from the leaves."
--Euripedes

If you go in for argument, take care of your temper. Your logic, if you have any, will take care of itself.
-- Joseph Farrell

Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details.
-- William Feather

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."
--William Feather

"Do each daily task the best we can; act as tough the eye of opportunity were always upon us."
--William Feather

Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.
-- Millicent Fenwick

"Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little."
--Edna Ferber

"Keep your promises to yourself."
--David H. Fink

"Wherever you are... you don't have to stay."
--Neil Finn, Blind Date

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary."
--Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Beware so long as you live, of judging people by appearances.
-- La Fontaine

"A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness."
--Bernard de Fontenelle

"If you're looking for perfection, look in the mirror. If you find it there, expect it elsewhere."
--Malcolm Forbes

"I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn't give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you."
--Harrison Ford

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
--Henry Ford

If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.
-- Brendan Francis

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.
-- Benjamin Franklin, 'Poor Richard's Almanack,' June 1746

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.
-- Benjamin Franklin

"There is a difference between imitating a good man and counterfeiting him."
--Benjamin Franklin

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
-- Robert Fritz

"Life is just a series of trying to make up your mind."
--Timothy Fuller

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine."
-- Robert C. Gallagher

A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
--Mahatma Gandhi

"It is slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body."
--Kahlil Gibran

It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.
-- Andre Gide

Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself - and thus make yourself indispensable.
-- Andre Gide

If you wish in this world to advance, your merits you're bound to enhance; You must stir it and stump it, and blow your own trumpet, or trust me, you haven't a chance.
-- W. S. Gilbert

Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"We most always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden."
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.
-- Oliver Goldsmith

"The impossible is often the untried."
--Jim Goodwin

"All we are asked to bear we can bear."
--Elizabeth Goudge

"Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case
that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed."
-- Baltasar Gracian

Know how to ask. There is nothing more difficult for some people, nor for others, easier.
-- Baltasar Gracian

"It is a great piece of skill to know how to guide your luck, even while waiting for it."
--Baltasar Gracian

"The more you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes."
--Amy Grant

"Don't hurry, don't worry. You're only here for a short visit. So be sure to stop and smell the flowers."
--Walter Hagen

"Put duties aside at least an hour before bed and perform soothing, quiet activities that will help you relax."
--Dianne Hales

"All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them, but confront them."
--William F. Halsey

"A compliment is a gift, not to be thrown away carelessly, unless you want to hurt the giver."
-- Eleanor Hamilton

If hunger makes you irritable, better eat and be pleasant.
-- Sefer Hasidim

"A person needs at intervals to separate himself from family and companions and go to new places. He must go without his familiars in order to be open to influence, to change."
--Katherine B. Hathaway

"Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized."
--Francis R. Havergal

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
-- Helen Hayes, in Roy Newquist, Showcase, 1966

"It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it"
--Lillian Hellman

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
--Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

Without discipline, there's no life at all.
-- Katharine Hepburn

You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
-- George Herbert

"Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue."
-- John Herschel

"The course of life is unpredictable . . . no one can write his autobiography in advance."
--Abraham Joshua Heschel

A man may well bring a horse to the water but he cannot make him drink.
-- John Heywood

"Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world."
--Robert Hillyer

"Rudeness is the weak man's limitation of strength."
--Eric Hoffer

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.
-- Alice Hoffman, 'Here on Earth'

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."
--Hans Hoffman

There's nothing that keeps its youth, in so far as I know, but a tree and truth.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1809 - 1894)

"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but
how we behave when we don't know what to do."
-John Holt, on Character

A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
-- Grace Murray Hopper

"Seize today, and put as little trust as you can in the morrow."
--Horace

"A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience."
--Elbert Hubbard

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man."
--Elbert Hubbard

"Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant – the digitalis of failure."
--Elbert Hubbard

"Wise Man: One who sees the storm coming before the clouds appear."
--Elbert Hubbard

"One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows slowly endures."
--J. G. Hubbard

"If you haven't forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others?"
--Dolores Huerta

You cannot go around and keep score. If you keep score on the good things and the bad things, you'll find out that you're a very miserable person. God gave man the ability to forget, which is one of the greatest attributes you have. Because if you remember everything that's happened to you, you generally remember that which is the most unfortunate.
-- Hubert H. Humphrey (1911 - 78 AD)

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."
--Robert Maynard Hutchins

"There isn't any formula or method. You learn to love by loving -- by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done."
--Aldous Huxley

"Each bird must sing with his own throat."
--Henrik Ibsen

"Worry is interest paid on trouble before it comes due."
--William R. Inge

"You can only predict things after they have happened."
--Eugene Ionesco

We don't get offered crises, they arrive.
-- Elizabeth Janeway

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
-- Thomas Jefferson

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Never ruin an apology with an excuse. ~ Kimberly Johnson

"Walk away from it [your problems] until you get stronger. All your troubles will be there when you get back, but you'll be better able to cope."
--Lady Bird Johnson

We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.
-- Lyndon B. Johnson, December 13, 1963

"It does not always pay to have a golden tongue unless one has the ability to hold it."
--Paul Johnson

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
-- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

"One thing you will probably remember well is anytime you forgive and forget."
--Franklin P. Jones

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
~ Erica Jong

Be not ashamed of thy virtues; honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times.
-- Ben Jonson

"It does not require many words to speak the truth."
Chief Joseph.....Nez Perce

When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
-- Henry J. Kaiser

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.
-- Henry J. Kaiser

"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold."
--Helen Keller

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope or confidence."
--Helen Keller

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
-- Helen Keller

"I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers."
--Helen Keller

"Love the moment and the energy of the moment will spread beyond all boundaries."
--Corita Kent

I've arrived at this outermost edge of my life by my own actions. Where I am is thoroughly unacceptable. therefore, I must stop doing what I've been doing.
-- Alice Killer

"All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem."
-- Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love," 1963

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.
-- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), 'Strength to Love,' 1963

"The time is always right to do what is right."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

The words 'I am...' are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.
-- A. L. Kitselman

"Make your judgment trustworthy by trusting it."
--Grenville Kleiser

"Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win."
--Jonathan Kozol

"Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics."
--Karl Kraus

"If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered."
--Stanley Kubrick

"When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul!"
--Rabbi Harold Kushner